In the 1930s Frank Lloyd Wright began working on a plan to remake the
architectural fabric of the United States. Based on the principle of decentralization,
Wright advocated for the abandonment of the industrialized city in favor of an agrarian
landscape where each individual would have access to his or her own acre of land.
Wright's vision, which he called Broadacre City, was to be the fruit of modern
technology directed towards its proper end - human freedom. Envisioning a society that
would be technologically advanced in practice but agrarian in organization and values,
Wright developed a proposal that embodied the conceptual polarity between nature and
culture. This thesis critically examines Wright's resolution of this dichotomy in light of
the cultural and intellectual currents prevalent in America of his time.
